The government needed to build roads, sewers, aqueducts, and arenas. They needed to pay for the welfare program put in place to help feed the growing number of poor people in Rome. They needed a lot of money. They needed more and more money.
8 facts(Rome)
1. Rome used most of the tax money to build roads and houses, clean streets and the coloseums for there games.
2. Most of the money was collected by tax farmers and the farmers asked for taxes above the tax amount.
3. Rome raised tax rates and that caused inflation
4. The growing number of provincial taxes brought into being a large class of investors whose speculations tended to generate substantial returns.
5. The people in power stopped conquering land of others because the empire was getting too big.
6. The publican is from the Latin word "publicanus", and from the Greek word "telones" which mean a tax gatherer
7. Judea was in the province of Syria and every man was to pay 1% of his annual income for income tax.
8. There were also import and export taxes, crop taxes (1/10 of grain crop and 1/5 of wine, fruit, and olive oil), sales tax, property tax, emergency tax, and on and on.
The problem right now:
Taxes are way to high to afford. Also we dont have enough money to pay for debt and public works and highways. We need to make it fair so it matches up with the amount that the goverment spends on taxes to.
8 facts(current):
1. There isn’t even enough money to tax in order to cover our national debt or even next year’s projected spending.
2. If you raise the tax rate even higher that’s how much cash you can hope to squeeze out of it.
3. The federal gas tax is 184 cents for a gallon of gas and 24.4 cents for diesel because there are more fuel efficient vehicles.
4. Social Security taxes are subject to a wage threshold. Any income earned above the threshold is not taxed. For 2013 the threshold is $113,700.
5. If extra money had not been added to the Social Security program by increasing tax rates above the levels specified in the original Social Security Act the program would have been unable to pay full benefits since before 1980.
6. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in low-income countries or every US $1 lost in trade taxes only 30 US cents has been recovered in sales and consumption taxes.
7. Federal tax rates vary from 10% to 35% of taxable income.
8. Taxes based on income are imposed at the federal, most state, and some local levels within the United States.
Here's a modified version of the current Federal Income Tax Brackets (I've rounded off the numbers to make it easier to follow):
My name is Abbie i am from Nagel Middle School. I was just wondering if could ask you some questions? It’s fine if you don't know the answers. I understand you are obtaining your PhD in economics and have worked for the governement and therefore are an expert on my assigned topic. I have researched the problem of not enough tax money to fix public works in Rome and have to use current knowledge and resources to fix this problem. If you could help me out that would be great. The questions are.....
In Rome, the government built too many public works such as aqeducts that they could no longer support through tax money (no Romans had jobs, so they could not pay taxes!). Can you pick one public works project in the US that was no longer able to be funded? What steps did the government take?
I researched the various tax brackets in the US, do you think taxes should be raised to pay for public works? If so, how much?
How does the US create money or resources to pay for public works?
Thank you so much for you time!!! I really appreciae your help.
Abbie B
What he said:
Hi The form of taxes is somewhat independent of what it is spent on, but here goes:
1) highway funding has traditionally been funded in part by gas taxes. The reluctance to raise those taxes (despite the advice of some economists check out__http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/10/pigou-club-manifesto.html__) has resulted in lower funds for highway construction.
2) It depends on 1) what the public work is, 2) how the tax is set up and 3) when the tax is applied. If it is a worthwhile public work in the sense that it provides useful benefits to society that exceed its costs (ie is not a bridge to nowhere), then yes it often makes sense. Some people argue that because interest rates are low now and there are lots of consturction workers who used to build houses but are still out of work, now is a great time to expand public works since its cheap to borrow (given low interest rates) and it could help guys who used to build homes get jobs and incomes. There are only so many useful public works, but given the low levels of investment in our infrastructure since the 1980s, i'd say we are going to have to rebuild a lot of roads, bridges, etc and so we should do it when its cheap to do so.
3) We either raise taxes today or borrow from the future to pay for them . Borrowing has the advantage that you don't have to pay the bills today when economic activity is slower than normal, so its kind of a way to smooth out bad times. Borrowing works by issuing debt contacts where the US Government says to investors - if you give me $1,000,000 I will pay you X dollars every month for say 10 years, where after 10 years you will get your million back plus interest. The X dollars depends on the interest rate and right now interest rates are really low. So this is what I meant when I said it was cheap to borrow now. People are basically just giving us the million dollars to hold on to, which makes it ideal in terms of putting it to good use over the next ten years. Hope this helps
Research
Abbie B. and Danielle S. Wiki:
http://notenoughtaxmoneytofixpublicworks.wikispaces.comThe Problem in Rome:
The government needed to build roads, sewers, aqueducts, and arenas. They needed to pay for the welfare program put in place to help feed the growing number of poor people in Rome. They needed a lot of money. They needed more and more money.
8 facts(Rome)
1. Rome used most of the tax money to build roads and houses, clean streets and the coloseums for there games.
2. Most of the money was collected by tax farmers and the farmers asked for taxes above the tax amount.
3. Rome raised tax rates and that caused inflation
4. The growing number of provincial taxes brought into being a large class of investors whose speculations tended to generate substantial returns.
5. The people in power stopped conquering land of others because the empire was getting too big.
6. The publican is from the Latin word "publicanus", and from the Greek word "telones" which mean a tax gatherer
7. Judea was in the province of Syria and every man was to pay 1% of his annual income for income tax.
8. There were also import and export taxes, crop taxes (1/10 of grain crop and 1/5 of wine, fruit, and olive oil), sales tax, property tax, emergency tax, and on and on.
The problem right now:
Taxes are way to high to afford. Also we dont have enough money to pay for debt and public works and highways. We need to make it fair so it matches up with the amount that the goverment spends on taxes to.
8 facts(current):
1. There isn’t even enough money to tax in order to cover our national debt or even next year’s projected spending.
2. If you raise the tax rate even higher that’s how much cash you can hope to squeeze out of it.
3. The federal gas tax is 184 cents for a gallon of gas and 24.4 cents for diesel because there are more fuel efficient vehicles.
4. Social Security taxes are subject to a wage threshold. Any income earned above the threshold is not taxed. For 2013 the threshold is $113,700.
5. If extra money had not been added to the Social Security program by increasing tax rates above the levels specified in the original Social Security Act the program would have been unable to pay full benefits since before 1980.
6. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in low-income countries or every US $1 lost in trade taxes only 30 US cents has been recovered in sales and consumption taxes.
7. Federal tax rates vary from 10% to 35% of taxable income.
8. Taxes based on income are imposed at the federal, most state, and some local levels within the United States.
Here's a modified version of the current Federal Income Tax Brackets (I've rounded off the numbers to make it easier to follow):
Taxable Income / Tax Rate
$0 - $10,000 / 10%$10,000 - $30,000 / 15%$30,000 - $80,000 / 25%
$80,000 - $200,000 / 28%
$200,000 - $400,000 / 33%
More than $400,000 / 35%
Owen Zidar
Email: __ozidar@econ.berkeley.edu__
Twitter: __https://twitter.com/omzidar__
What I said:
What i said:
Dear Mr. Zidar,
My name is Abbie i am from Nagel Middle School. I was just wondering if could ask you some questions? It’s fine if you don't know the answers. I understand you are obtaining your PhD in economics and have worked for the governement and therefore are an expert on my assigned topic. I have researched the problem of not enough tax money to fix public works in Rome and have to use current knowledge and resources to fix this problem. If you could help me out that would be great. The questions are.....
Thank you so much for you time!!! I really appreciae your help.
Abbie B
What he said:
Hi The form of taxes is somewhat independent of what it is spent on, but here goes:
1) highway funding has traditionally been funded in part by gas taxes. The reluctance to raise those taxes (despite the advice of some economists check out__http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/10/pigou-club-manifesto.html__) has resulted in lower funds for highway construction.
2) It depends on 1) what the public work is, 2) how the tax is set up and 3) when the tax is applied. If it is a worthwhile public work in the sense that it provides useful benefits to society that exceed its costs (ie is not a bridge to nowhere), then yes it often makes sense. Some people argue that because interest rates are low now and there are lots of consturction workers who used to build houses but are still out of work, now is a great time to expand public works since its cheap to borrow (given low interest rates) and it could help guys who used to build homes get jobs and incomes. There are only so many useful public works, but given the low levels of investment in our infrastructure since the 1980s, i'd say we are going to have to rebuild a lot of roads, bridges, etc and so we should do it when its cheap to do so.
3) We either raise taxes today or borrow from the future to pay for them . Borrowing has the advantage that you don't have to pay the bills today when economic activity is slower than normal, so its kind of a way to smooth out bad times. Borrowing works by issuing debt contacts where the US Government says to investors - if you give me $1,000,000 I will pay you X dollars every month for say 10 years, where after 10 years you will get your million back plus interest. The X dollars depends on the interest rate and right now interest rates are really low. So this is what I meant when I said it was cheap to borrow now. People are basically just giving us the million dollars to hold on to, which makes it ideal in terms of putting it to good use over the next ten years. Hope this helps
Owen
Sources:
"USA TODAY." USATODAY.COM. N.p., 24 Feb. 2012. Web. 25 Jan. 2013.
"Looking at All the Taxes." The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, n.d. Web. 25 Jan. 2012.
"Ancient Roman Currency and Economy." Ancient Roman Currency and Economy. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Jan. 2013.
Zidar, Owen, and Laura D’Andrea Tyson. "Tax Cuts for Job Creators."